24 MODERN SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



finishing touches on, which was necessary to make the breed "a 

 thing of beauty and a joy forever." Mr. Meire used no hesitancy 

 in admitting that he got the more desirable points which he intro- 

 duced into the Morf e Common from the Southdown, and it is a 

 matter of history that he did not scruple to pay what in those 

 days appeared to be extravagant figures for the use of the best rams 

 procurable of that breed, wel-1 knowing, no doubt, that the surest 

 and shortest road to the goal is through the best horse. He drew 

 largely from John Ellman's famous flock for improving blood. 

 Once, having form and type, he went to work to fix same by the 

 most careful selection of such animals as were strong in those 

 characteristics which he sought, and to his endeavors is no doubt 

 largely due the existence of this now beautiful and very cosmo- 

 politan breed. 



Mr. Alfred Mansell, secretary of the English Shropshire 

 Breeders' Association, a gentleman who has done as much or more 

 than any one in recent years toward the improvement of the mod- 

 ern Shropshire, does not follow Mr. Meire's views in regard to the 

 introduction of such blood as that of. the Leicester, Cotswold, or 

 Southdown, for, says he, "the Shropshire sheep is descended from 

 a breed which has been known to exist in Shropshire and Stafford- 

 shire for upwards of a century. Whether or not, as some assert, 

 Southdown or other rams have been introduced, it has been by 

 developing the strongly inherited characteristics of the native breed 

 of the district that all the best flocks have been built up, and not 

 by the introduction of new blood." 



Centuries ago, as far back as 1343, there was a class of wool 

 in Shropshire which was considered far-and-away ahead in qual- 

 ity to that of any other section of the country. There are those 

 who have given considerable thought and study to the question 

 who are inclined to the belief that this wool was from the Eyeland 

 sheep a sheep which in those days much resembled the Morfe 

 Common sheep, if it was not in reality a variety of that breed 

 and that today the quality of the Shropshire's fleece is due in a 

 great measure to its influence. Of course this is little more than 

 supposition, for we have no reliable data that tend to .bear out 

 this contention. 



We are told that in 1792 the British Wool Society reported that 

 on Morfe Common there was found, during the summer months, 

 a flock of about 10,000 sheep which produced wool of a very su- 

 perior quality. They were pronounced a native breed, which was 

 very little subject to^scab, liver-rot, or foot-rot, and whose wethers 

 dressed from 11 to 14 pounds per quarter. While Professor Wilson 

 is strong in the belief that the present breed of Shropshire Downs 

 sprung from the old Morfe Common and crosses of the Leicester, 

 Cotswold and Southdown, this view is not universally shared, for 

 there are manv who, with Mr. Mansell, believe the pure Shrop- 



